Clean Energy and Transportation News for July 2018
Honda SmartChargeTM beta program helps electric vehicle drivers save money and reduce environmental footprint
(July 31, 2018)The most obvious time to recharge an electric car, immediately upon arriving home from work, is not the best for the grid. In the early evening is when the "duck curve" dictates a need to steeply ramp up fossil fuel electricity production because the sun is setting lessening solar power. It's necessary to instead orchestrate electricity demand, like electric car charging, to occur later at night when demand is lower and the grid has excess power.
Honda has struck a deal with eMotorWerks (a subsidiary of ENEL) to integrate eMotorWerks' JuiceNet platform, using that service to orchestrate the best timing of electric car charging. The eMotorWerks system taps pricing information from electricity grid operators to optimize electric car charging.
The current deal is to implement a beta program among Honda Fit EV "owners" to study optimum timing for electric car charging.
Toyota doubles-down on zero emissions heavy-duty class 8 trucks
(July 31, 2018)Toyota is sticking with hydrogen fuel cells, this time for a class 8 heavy duty truck. The truck was unveiled at a meeting of the Center for Automotive Research, and increases the estimated range to more than 300 miles per fill. The vehicle operator has a larger sleeper cab than the previous iteration. The previous iteration began operation in April 2017 and has logged almost 10,000 miles of testing in real world service at the Ports of Long Beach and Los Angeles. Toyota plans to put the new vehicle into operation this fall.
The design uses the fuel cell drive train from the Toyota Mirai - two Mirai fuel cell stacks plus a 12 kiloWatt-hour battery pack.
The described target is not long-haul trucking, but drayage trucking. That is, the trucks driving back and forth between cargo ships and train depots and warehouses. There's a large number of these trucks the vast majority of which are diesel powered and produce a horrid form of air pollution.
Former Toyota business partner, Tesla, is targeting a different market with their battery-electric class 8 truck. Namely, the long haul trucking market.
Sandia National Labs developing hydrogen fuel cell boat
(July 3, 2018) Ships at sea no longer must be powered by Diesel fuel. Research led by Sandia National Labs shows that hydrogen fuel cells can be used instead. An accident need not necessitate spilling toxic polluting diesel fuel into the water, because spilled hydrogen cleans itself up automatically dissipating into the atmosphere with no harm, and the exhaust is not toxic but is instead pure water. The work at present is about designing research vessels that run on hydrogen, but the team is also interested in other vessels. An earlier effort had focused on ferry boats such as are used on San Francisco Bay to shuttle around commuters. The result is the Zero-V research vessel pictured here.Cummins Announces Acquisition of Electric and Hybrid Powertrain Provider Efficient Drivetrains, Inc. Acquisition Will Accelerate Electrification Capabilities
(July 3, 2018) Cummins is continuing its move into clean energy technology by acquiring Efficient Drivetrains, Inc., a manufacturer of hybrid, plug-in hybrid, and fully electric drive trains for commercial trucks. Cummins is of course a large manufacturer of big trucks, and is looking to shift towards clean fuels away from the Diesel fuel that normally powers the industry. Earlier Cummins acquired Brammo, a manufacturer of electric motorcycles and energy storage systems, and Johnson Matthey's battery business. Another related announcement is that Cummins is developing both battery-electric and plug-in hybrid drive trains for transit busses.Nissan cancels sale of its Battery manufacturing business to GSR Capital
(July 2, 2018)Since launching the LEAF, Nissan's battery packs came from its subsidiary Automotive Energy Supply Corporation (AESC). In August 2017, Nissan announced it would sell that subsidiary to GSR Capital. On July 1, 2018, Nissan announced it was canceling the sale. GSR Capital, a Chinese investment company, was unable to raise the funds by the June 29 deadline. Clearly the batteries made by AESC were not desirable enough to warrant an investment. According to Reuters, Nissan sought to sell its battery business as part of a plan to get lower-cost batteries from other manufacturers, such as LG Chem who supplies sister company Renault. Nissan has talked with other battery manufacturers about purchasing the AESC subsidiary. Panasonic is quoted by Reuters saying they're not interested in buying the manufacturing equipment used by other makers, and that Nissan's formulation is not all that interesting.